This article discusses and analyses the experience of women involved in a non-government organisation-funded women's empowerment project in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Women involved in the project encounter ideas about community development and urban poverty reduction – in particular, outsider-imposed notions of self-help group formation, women's empowerment, and community solidarity. The article explores the ways in which power dynamics and social structures in this post-conflict setting affect the outcome of women's self-help groups.
